Deconstruction as Discipleship: Rethinking the Debate with Help From John Boyd

"Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee" - Rembrandt

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In a previous article, I introduced readers to John Boyd’s brief “Destruction and Creation,” offering a short description and theological analysis. In this article, I aim to probe deeper into Boyd’s system of how we create and maintain our ideas and beliefs of the world around us, and how that might provide a new way for Christians to engage the idea of deconstruction.

While he is best known for his approach to winning tactical situations (OODA and Energy-Maneuverability Theory), John Boyd’s primary area of interest focused on how we make sense of an uncertain world. In order to make decisions, plan, and navigate through life, humans and human collaborations (families, organizations, nations, etc.) require “mental concepts of observed reality.”^[1] These mental concepts take “particulars,” facts, ideas, experiences, and align them according to common threads and similarities under an organizing theme.^[2] This organizing structure of our life experiences serves as a guide for operating in the world around us.

The problem we encounter with these conceptual structures is their inherent instability. An essential element of conceptual structures is their alignment with reality, that what we believe about the world matches what we experience in the world, especially as new information from continuing life experiences is added to the body of particulars. We are constantly testing our conceptual structures for internal consistency and validity, and adjusting to new realities.^[3] At times throughout our lives, the preponderance of particulars will insist the organizing structure is no longer valid. We will need to change the way we think about the world. According to Boyd, this happens in two ways.

First, as we create conceptual frameworks, we may reach a point where we believe the structure has achieved internal consistency. We have arrived at the truth of life. When this occurs, ideas outside of the conceptual framework lose their appeal. Our conceptual system becomes closed; but we continue to test for validity and consistency within our closed system.^[4] In common terms, this is “naval gazing,” the type of tedious hair-splitting exemplified by some of our most rigid and insular institutions. The act of testing for internal consistency assumes inconsistency in a system which has declared itself consistent; yet, that system has deprived itself of the external perspective necessary to shed light on the inconsistencies. A closed system does not possess the tools to evaluate itself, and attempts to do so bring increasing instability.^[5] Boyd borrows a term from physics - entropy - to describe this situation of increasing disorder paired with a decreasing capacity for work and action, creating growing confusion and disorder, leading to eventual fragmentation.^[6] “Unless some kind of relief is available, we can expect confusion to increase until disorder approaches chaos - death.”^[7]

When dealing with individual humans, I argue there is no such thing as a truly closed system. None of us can arrive at a place where we claim to have life completely figured out and simply refuse to accept new experiences. Life goes on regardless of our opinions of it. What we can do is refuse to allow new particulars to inform our conceptual framework. We can insist every new fact, idea, and experience we encounter in life comply with our established conceptual framework. We have decided what every future life situation will mean based on our previous life experiences. In reality, this does not work. Attempts to force new information into inflexible conceptual frameworks effectively creates a closed system, into which we force particulars which do not fit the theme. The result is the growing entropy toward chaos Boyd describes. Eventually, our conceptual framework can no longer contain the internal crisis, and our philosophy of life shatters, leaving us to pick up the pieces.^[8]

A second way conceptual frameworks change is by welcoming input from outside systems. We embrace new facts, ideas, and experiences, and incorporate them into our validity and consistency tests of our conceptual frameworks. Boyd views this as the cure for the death spiral of a closed system.^[9] As we encounter more of life, we adapt our beliefs about life based on the growing body of information available to us. However, this does not ensure the perpetual survival of a given conceptual frame. A given concept may not possess the flexibility to encompass all of life’s experiences. We then choose to abandon the old system and construct something new. Boyd argues the first step in that process is shattering the old conceptual framework, leaving the particulars of life floating in a state of chaos.^[10]

Whether we have fought or embraced our way to the place of chaos, the necessary act following destruction is creation. We sort through the particulars of life, finding common threads and themes, constructing an organizing conceptual framework to guide us in the world.^[11] While this new framework offers better correlation to reality than its predecessor, it is no more stable. It offers the same options of a closed or open system, and the same eventual end of destruction, followed by a new creation. Destruction and creation is a constant cycle of life.^[12]

In the last decade, the practice of “deconstruction,” where individuals deliberately question beliefs and practices of their Christian faith in an attempt to increase consistency of the whole, has become a hot topic in the church. The results of these deconstruction efforts are diverse, with practitioners sometimes arriving outside of the faith, in a different Christian tradition, or with renewed (but altered) convictions within the tradition where they began. Likewise, the practice of deconstruction has been both celebrated and vilified by different camps within the Christian community. I believe that deconstruction is akin to John Boyd’s destruction and creation, and Boyd’s offering to this conversation is the insight that this process is not new, unique, liberating, or alarming, but rather an expression of the way humans make sense - have always made sense - of the world around them. As such, it is an invitation for the church to practice discipleship.

When the Christian faith is proposed as a closed system, in which only previously accepted particulars are admitted, and all others must either distort or be dismissed, deconstruction is the inevitable result. When that result comes, and the particulars fragment into chaos, the new system cannot be the one which previously fragmented.^[13] When a Christian tradition holds its views dogmatically, rejecting and demonizing any idea or experience not previously approved, it not only guarantees a growing entropy within itself, but when that entropy shatters the system, the over-arching conceptual framework will prove false. Phrased more practically, when a member of the church has experiences from outside the approved system, expresses doubts, or asks questions about the system, and is met with blanket disapproval and rejection, the system is almost ensuring collapse and rejection in the life of that individual. When a rigid, insular system is posed as the only way to be Christian, the collapse of that system leads to the rejection of Christianity. 

When the Christian faith is proposed as an open system, facts, ideas, and experiences are welcome to be explored. When a person in the church has experiences from outside of the system, it becomes an opportunity for conversation and growing in Christ. The role of the church can be to expose the individual to further ideas and experiences, and to help them evaluate how new experiences exist with their conceptual framework. The end journey for that individual will never be the place where they started. Their understanding of Christ will inevitably be different than when they began. This is a challenge for the church, as we are called to guide our fellow believers into mature faith; but we must also accept that salvation in Christ may have borders that extend beyond the boundaries of our particular theological traditions. The journey may not end in faith, but in an open system, the church has offered a framework which is not destined to self-destruction, and can offer guidance regarding how new particulars might contribute to a richer faith.

Finally, Boyd’s thoughts offer the reality that no spiritual journey is at its end. Despite the way some proponents and opponents of deconstruction might assert their conclusions with confidence, all human conceptual frameworks are bound for fragmentation. No conclusion is certain. There is always change. This means there is always room to offer continual partnership in discipleship.

 

 

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^[1]John R. Boyd, “Destruction and Creation”1976), 2.

^[2]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3.

^[3]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3.

^[4]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 4.

^[5]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 4–5.

^[6]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 6–7.

^[7]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 7.

^[8]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3.

^[9]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 7.

^[10]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3.

^[11]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3.

^[12]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 7.

^[13]Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” 3.

Is the Universe Orderly or Chaotic? More Theological Musings on the Philosophy of John Boyd

 

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This series of articles has been offering theological conversation around the philosophy of John Boyd. Boyd was an officer in the United States Air Force, famously known for his theories on winning tactical engagements (OODA, Energy-Maneuverability). Boyd built these theories on the foundation of a much deeper study of epistemology: how we experience and make sense of the world around us. A key foundational premise in Boyd’s thinking is the idea that the Universe is, “uncertain, ever-changing, unpredictable;” the Universe is chaos.^[1] Any reliable order we find is an anomaly within a larger chaotic system. Any order we find swims in a sea of disorder.^[2]

In order to engage Boyd’s thinking on a theological level, we must address this basic question: is the Universe inherently orderly or chaotic? When I began attempting to make sense of this question, I did what all thinkers do, I asked my family and friends. I’m inclined to believe my family and friends are uniquely insightful, but don’t we all? Regardless, their answers fell into three broad themes.^[3]

 

The Universe is Orderly

Within traditional theological interpretation, order seems to be the only acceptable answer. The initial creation narrative shows God creating a series of clear categories, distinctions, and systems, even giving humanity dominion within these systems (Gen. 1:1-31). Today, we refer to these orderly systems as natural “laws,” really just observations on how nature never fails to do what it has always done. The rising and setting of the sun, the coming and going of the seasons, the inevitability of water flowing from the mountains to the sea, only to be absorbed into the air to fall on the mountains once again. The writer of Ecclesiastes appears to lament that nature is predictable to the point of boredom (1:3-9). Today, science has shown us this order pervades to the atomic level, where the spinning of one atom is matched by a partner atom, regardless of the distance between them.

An objection to this view might be human free will, the capacity of any person at any time to choose a disruptive, chaotic series of actions. To that, order advocates note that free will is not truly chaotic. It is not random or unexpected. Humans offer logical reasons for their actions, and those reasons are often attempts to attain some type of order. Even decisions designed to be disruptive tend to use that disruption to upset the status quo and establish a new order.

Scripture is rich with imagery of God repeatedly defeating chaos to bring order in life creating and sustaining ways. Whether it is the ordering of the formless void at creation, the splitting of the sea to preserve Israel, the taming of Job’s Leviathan, or the silencing of the sea with a word; God consistently tames the forces of chaos to bring order (Gen: 1:1-31; Is. 51:10; Job 41; Mt. 4:35-41). Yet, this raises an objection. Disorder remains in the world. The biblical motifs of desert and sea acknowledge the reality of times and places where the apparently orderly systems of creation do no thrive. If those elements of chaos had been completely eliminated in the creative act, we would not know of them; but here they are.

 

The Universe is Chaotic

Advocates for a chaotic universe point to the primordial “stuff” of creation. Genesis 1:2 famously declares “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of deep (KJV).” Upon this formless nothing, God created the order which we now experience; yet, don’t experience. The narrative arc of the first few chapters of Genesis relate an initial created order which did not last. Through the Fall, a chaotic element was introduced to the world, rendering creation unstable; the chaotic realms of desert and sea maintain their domain.

Science names this chaos as entropy, the consistent loss of energy across time. The universe is winding down, and as less energy is available, order decays into disorder. Even the laws of nature which we regularly observe are subject to decay. In lived experience, we encounter this through weeds in a garden, or the messy room of a teenager. Order requires the expenditure of energy; and when energy is not available, disorder rules. Without intervention, creation seems to want to return to its initial formless and void state.

Key in this trend towards chaos is human free will. We may place logical reasons, or a desire to establish a new order, behind our decisions, but the fact remains that even our carefully reasoned order may serve selfish desires, detrimental to nature and humanity. The ability to choose a path which degrades the quality and even possibility of life is a chaotic element.

Genesis tells the story of God moving chaos to order, but also the story of humanity’s freedom to resist that order; and the Universe’s tendency to return to disorder. In this system, any order we find is the expenditure of a creating or sustaining energy into a Universe which desires to fall apart. Any remnant of creation which remains is an act of grace.

 

We Can’t Know

Some of the friends and family I polled declined to answer, arguing it is impossible to know. The breadth and efficacy of human observation and judgment is notoriously limited. Perhaps what we see as chaos has an order on a magnitude we cannot see. Maybe what we see as a routine ordering of events sows seeds of chaos on a grand scale. We simply can’t know.

 Scripture attests to this in several ways. The story of Joseph is that of a young man sold into chaos, despised by his brothers who faked his death and sent him to Egypt as a slave, and later imprisoned on the false accusations of his employer’s wife. Yet, decades later, as one of the most powerful men in Egypt, and reconciled with his family, Joseph reflected, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good (Gen. 50:20 NIV).”

On a broader scale, several biblical books seem to live in tension. The Pentateuch describes God’s ordered creation, and the laws by which man must live to be blessed as God’s people. Yet, Job offers the story of a man who is faithful, and despite - or perhaps even because of - that faithfulness, experiences calamitous tragedy. When he lodges a grievance with God, the only response he receives is, “Are you God?” Likewise, Proverbs presents the orderly praise of wisdom, and pithy couplets advising the surest way to live a good life. Yet, Ecclesiastes laments the uncertainty of finding satisfaction in this life, the futility of human striving. Even the Bible itself, while attesting to an orderly God, leaves open the question of whether we can rest in a reliable, orderly world.

 

Conclusion

While we can debate whether the universe is ordered or disordered, whether we are on an island of disorder floating in a sea of order; or an island of order floating in a sea of chaos, scripture does attest that order is our final destination. While the monsters of chaos have some dominion in the world, scripture repeatedly represents their defeat at the hands of God. The book of Revelation offers the promise of a coming time when the forces of chaos are cast into a lake of fire, and a new Earth is established free from their influence (chs. 20-21). For the time being, we are left in a situation where the reality is uncertain. Are we floating in a sea of order or chaos?

 

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^[1]John R. Boyd, “Conceptual Spiral”1976), 33.

^[2]John R. Boyd, “John Boyd’s ‘Conceptual Spiral’ Presentation”1976), 41:00 Boyd’s exact quote is, “Linear phenomena swims in a non-linear sea.”

^[3]Special thanks to Dr. Geoffrey Bruschi, Yvonne and Daniel Cabrol, Ashleigh and Ryan Cagno, Doris and Galen Hackman, Jeremy Krider, Gloria and Steve Mann, Michael Milunic, Andrew Ruggiero, and Jon Zabick for their insights on this topic.